FAQs

Amsara is a global liquidity platform bridging real world assets to DeFi. Our mission is simple - we have seen too many customers lose their money by investing in platforms that did not protect their money and that lent it to risky borrowers.

We are on a mission to bring transparent and uncorrelated yields to DeFi sourced from well-known and easy-to-understand real world assets (RWA). We are also doing so by using structures that are crypto-native and that still provide customers with the maximum legal protection possible.

We also think DeFi has awesome potential to solve some of TradFi’s biggest challenges, but currently many platforms are not very user-friendly. That’s why we want to build a UI and UX that is as easy (or easier!) than opening and using a bank account, so that truly anyone can invest with us.

Amsara is a Seychelles incorporated entity undergoing the licensure process to become a fully licensed fund manager under the Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA).

Labuan is a long-established special economic zone designated by the government of Malaysia to act as a midshore jurisdiction for international business and trade, located off the coast of East Malaysia. While lesser known than its offshore peers like the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, Labuan has become popular for doing business across many parts of Asia, has a globally recognized regulatory framework, provides international business flexibility, and is friendly and cost-effective for new blockchain companies like Amsara.

Furthermore, while our reach is truly global, we are proud of our Southeast Asian roots, and we think it is important to build our base in the region to

1. support local businesses,
2. build relationships with regional regulators as much as possible, and
3. contribute to the region's burgeoning Web3 ecosystem.

We want to be regulatorily compliant to the maximum extent possible at all times (both inside and outside Southeast Asia), and as our business expands, our full intention is to get licensed in multiple jurisdictions around the world.

We are still undergoing the process of becoming fully licensed and setting up our legal structures. We aim to start closed beta testing in early Q2 2023.

At this juncture, Amsara is a CeFi platform. This is because we prioritise investor protection above all else, and we currently do not see a clear path to DeFi institutions and protocols getting licensed and becoming fully regulated, something that is especially important given that we are dealing with RWA and want to give customers full ownership over those assets.

We also think new users entering the crypto space will be more comfortable using a CeFi platform rather than a DeFi one to acclimate themselves with the industry. However, as regulations develop globally over the coming years, we will explore becoming a true DeFi organization as much as possible.

TAPs are the main vehicles by which we link customers with RWA - they are asset pools that customers can deposit their funds into for investment purposes. Each TAP will have a mandate to build and manage a portfolio of investments across a single type of asset e.g. US Treasuries, commercial paper, corporate bonds, etc.

TAPs are fully independent fund-like legal entities domiciled in the Cayman Islands. Amsara is the designated fund manager for each TAP, but each TAP and its underlying assets ultimately belong to you, the customer. We have established our TAPs in the Caymans for three main reasons:

• To provide tax-efficiency to all customers (so any income you earn from the TAPs will not be taxed at the fund level);
• To utilise a well-known international jurisdiction that would give comfort to the most number of TAP customers (each TAP is subject to Caymans regulations and is registered with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority); and
• Because the Caymans allows TAPs to directly issue tokens instead of shares. This means that we can eliminate the interim step of tokenizing shares, and each token represents your direct legal and proportional claim to a given TAP and its underlying assets (rather than representing a share). This makes administration of each TAP far more efficient and much cheaper.

Each TAP is its own real world legal entity separate from Amsara. So while Amsara manages each TAP for customers, all your assets are fully and legally segregated from us, meaning that you always retain full and direct ownership over your underlying assets.

If a customer chooses to interact with TAPs using stablecoin, then they can only use their external wallet - Amsara does not create crypto wallets for its customers. If a customer chooses to interact with the TAPs using fiat, then they will have to create a fiat wallet with Amsara. However, all customer fiat will sit in fully segregated accounts within Amsara. To be clear, only uninvested customer fiat will sit on Amsara’s balance sheet (and even then in segregated accounts) - all other customer funds will sit within the TAPs themselves, which are fully segregated from Amsara.

By law, Amsara and all TAPs are also subject to annual audits.

We only accept USDC, USDT, and DAI (all ETH versions only) and USD fiat at this time. As our TAP offerings grow, we plan to:

• Accept other forms of USD stablecoin;
• Make all our TAP tokens multichain; and
• Accept non-USD stablecoins and fiat.

You will need a passport or some form of national identification to undergo standard Know-Your-Client (KYC) checks (to be undertaken by Securitize ID).

If you want to invest with stablecoin, then you should already hold some USD stablecoin and ETH in your external wallet. If you want to invest with fiat, you should be ready to wire USD funds to your fiat wallet at Amsara. If you want to use fiat, you will still need to have your own external wallet to self-custody your TAP tokens, and with a bit of ETH in it to pay for gas fees.

For every TAP, we will fully disclose all assets, balances, accruals, and other pertinent information. Furthermore, our intention is for all TAP assets to be attested for on a periodic basis.

The benefit of having the TAPs in the Cayman Islands is that each TAP does not incur any income taxes, regardless of where you are ultimately located. However, we structure our TAPS for administrative and tax efficiency, not for avoidance or evasion, and thus we expect all our customers to declare their TAP earnings to the tax authorities in their respective home countries.

Every token has its net asset value (NAV) calculated on a daily basis, based on the value of a given TAP’s underlying assets, which will generally consist of:

• Real world assets;
• Interest accruals;
• Some stablecoins and/or fiat; and
• Certain fee accruals (e.g. Amsara’s management fee).

If you want to be issued new tokens (i.e. primary issuance), you can link your external wallet directly to the TAP of your own choice and send stablecoins, and the TAP will mint you new tokens in return and send it to your external wallet.

If you want to use fiat, you will have to wire USD to your fiat wallet with Amsara. After you link your external crypto wallet to the TAP of your choice, you can initiate payment from your fiat wallet with Amsara, and the TAP will mint you new tokens in return and send it to your external wallet.

New tokens can be minted at any time (except weekends, since TradFi markets are closed and we are unable to quickly deploy your money).

To help us more effectively manage each TAP’s liquidity, minimize uninvested fund balances, and therefore maximize returns, we will limit withdrawals to an epoch basis (currently set to a monthly cadence, though we intend to shorten this over time).

Prior to the end of each epoch, customers can enter a redemption ‘queue’ and will be served in the order that requests were received. Redemptions will only be funded by interest payments and principal maturities - TAPs will not sell underlying assets to fund liquidity as we believe this is not in the ultimate interest of TAP holders.

If you want to redeem in stablecoin, you will receive your redemption amount in USDC only. If you want to redeem in fiat, USD will be remitted to your fiat wallet with Amsara.

TAP tokens can be traded among Amsara’s account holders using our internal crossing network. Customers can set time limits (e.g. day, good-till-cancelled) and fill limits (e.g. partial fills, fill-or-kill) on their orders. All orders will be crossed once daily at a given TAP token’s NAV, with no trading fees charged by Amsara (though customers will still incur gas fees for each successful transaction).

Eventually, as our TAPs grow in size, our goals are:

1. to move to pricing that is more driven by investor supply and demand, and
2. have our TAP tokens traded on digital asset and crypto exchanges around the world.

We only charge a management fee on each TAP’s NAV of between 15 to 50 basis points annually (depending on the TAP). These fees are accrued on a daily basis and are disclosed on a TAP-by-TAP basis.

We are still onboarding our institutional partners but our intention at this moment is to have all real world trade execution carried out by Saxo Markets.

Amsara tokens are minted on the Ethereum Blockchain and according to the ERC-20 standard. Any wallet connected to the Ethereum Blockchain can hold all Amsara TAP tokens.

Once you receive your Amsara tokens in your external wallet, you are free to transfer them between other wallets as you wish, even if those wallets are not registered with Amsara. Please note that Amsara does not bear the cost of gas fees for transferring tokens between wallets. Should you wish to redeem tokens, they must be held in a registered external wallet prior to redemption.

While you are free to transfer TAP tokens to non-registered wallets, any TAP tokens that want to be traded on Amsara’s crossing network or be redeemed for stablecoin/fiat must be done by an existing Amsara account holder who has successfully undergone KYC.

Amsara will charge a 5 basis points redemption fee.